The Jamesburg school board budget calls for a tax decrease.
By: Marissa Maldonado
JAMESBURG School administrators across the state are using budget public hearings to explain why flat state aid is causing homeowners’ tax bills to skyrocket.
The story was far different at the public hearing for the Jamesburg School District’s budget last week. The Board of Education unanimously approved a $10.87 million budget that calls for a 4-cent decrease in the tax rate, to $2.72 per $100 of assessed property value. Under that rate, the owner of a house assessed at the borough’s average of $123,319, would pay about $3,354 in taxes, $50 less than this year.
Jamesburg school administrators, like those in most school districts, expect to receive the same amount of aid they did last year. District officials credited the drop in the tax rate to the refinancing of an $85.6 million loan, which caused the district’s debt service to drop 59 percent to $125,862. The one-time drop in debt service is the result of refinancing the $5.4 million loan the district took out in 1998 for construction of a new wing of the John F. Kennedy School.
The district had refinanced the loan to offset costs they it expected to start paying this year for the construction of a new high school in the Monroe Township School District. But the opening of that new high school has been delayed until at least 2010, leaving Jamesburg without the burden of new high school costs to carry this year.
"It’s a no-brainer," board Vice President Frank Tarulli said at the March 30 Board of Education meeting. "It’s a cut (in taxes) this year. You’ve got to vote for it."
But administrators said the reduced tax rate does not guarantee approval. A budget that called for a 16-cent tax reduction several years ago only passed by several dozen votes about the same margin as last year’s budget, which included a tax increase of 10.65 cents Business Administrator Tom Reynolds said.
Superintendent Shirley Bzdewka urged the handful of residents in the audience to come out on April 18 to vote for the budget.
"The people who are going to come out are the people who are going to say no," Ms. Bzdewka said. "If you don’t vote, we really have no idea what the community wants."
The only new staff position is a fifth-grade teacher at the John F. Kennedy School. The average class size in the district, not counting the preschool program, is expected to be 23 students per teacher, down from an average class size of 25 students last year. The district will pay $1.75 million in salaries this year, and Mr. Reynolds could not say what kind of increase that is over last year because they still are negotiating teacher contracts.
The amount of money the district has to pay for pensions for noncertified employees, called the Public Employment Employees’ Retirement System, has increased 20 percent to $10,800. The state will increase the district’s contribution by 20 percent each year until the district pays for all PERS costs, Mr. Reynolds said.
The district’s per pupil cost has gone up about $225, to $8,302. The district expects to see a decline of four students in grades K-8, bringing the total students to 480. But the number of high school students Jamesburg will send to Monroe Township High School is expected to increase by nine, to 233 students. Tuition for the high school is $13,533 per student.
The average tuition cost to send a child out of district, including special and vocational schools, has increased between 3 and 4 percent, Ms. Bzdewka said. The district will pay $4.22 million in tuition this year, an increase of $7,086.
Maintenance costs have gone down by $11,000, to $36,832, due to the retirement of a salaried employee, Ms. Bzdewka said. Transportation has gone up by almost $30,000, to $542,800.
Jamesburg cannot depend on more development to expand the tax base, as the town is almost completely built out, Mr. Reynolds said.
"We might get one or two (new students), but that’s not going to offset the tax rate," he said.

